“It’s like we got a face lift and fired our agent.”
That is the slogan that Future Shop is using in it’s new campaign. They have “changed the look” of the stores and are hoping that it will drive up sales.
First of all, the change is barely noticeable. The colors are all the same, the layout is the same, everything looks the same except maybe a little more empty space inside, and the new computer terminals where you can browse their site and make purchases using the attached card readers.
Unfortunately for them the new look does little to cover up the rot that is inside. A little paint or rearrangement does not change the fact that the staff are incompetent morons who are anything but helpful.
Yesterday I went to Future Shop to make a few purchases. I was not impressed with their “new look” and was even less impressed with their same level of—non—service. I was unable to find one of the items I was looking for that I had seen on their web site, another item had a different price saying that it’s only on sale through the web site, and the other item I had questions about.
Once again I found myself performing the Future Shop test that I have done on several occasions in the past year or so. I put on my acting face and did my best to look as confused and helpless as possible. I wandered around, I looked in all directions for sales agents, I checked my watch to indicate that I am in a hurray, I looked at expensive items to make them think I had tons of money to spend. Nothing! Fifteen minutes later and not a single agent came to assist me. Some of them were too busy helping other—somehow more important?—customers, while most of them were busy playing. There were groups of agents just standing around talking to each other, there were groups of agents helping single customers, there were agents watching the TVs, and even some playing the video games (in teams). Like I said this is not the first time I have done this test at Future Shop, however it was the first time I did it specifically in front of the surveillance cameras and in plain sight of the whole store.
I ended it—quite infuriated with the trashy “service” that Future Shop has been “providing” for the past several years—by making quite a show of being fed up and storming out. Of course I know that this will not help at all because Future Shop does not seem to give a damn about customers, they hire inept children who have no interest in their work; any changes they make will be entirely cosmetic.
The old adage is correct as far as stores go, it really is what’s on the inside that counts.